[aaronatthedoublef]

Your cookies look great Joan!

The place I volunteer has some holiday parties coming up and they added extra shifts so I worked one of those on Thursday. The chefs know I like to bake and so while others were cooking I was given the baking tasks.

First I made brie en croute with cranberries boiled in apple cider. I wanted to try cider since we're in New England and had it from a local orchard but it didn't work as well as orange juice. It was still a little too tart so I added some sugar in it. Now why they assumed I've made brie en croute before is beyond me but I was the only one there (aside from the chefs) who have worked with puff pastry. I have no idea how they came out. I'll find out next time.

They I took snickerdoodle dough and flattened it put it into muffin tins. We filled the cookie cups with apples baked with cinnamon and tossed with a little sugar to soak up some of the juice. Those came out pretty nicely.

It was a real change from what we normally make. Everything is gluten free and plant based for the clients we deliver meals to.

I knew things were going to be different when the chef came out with a giant cambro of AP flour! They I used non-gf puff pastry and real brie. So it was a big change. Of course clean up took a little longer because I wanted to make sure everything was wipe down and cleaned off for the regular cooking.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting CWC. My regular starter has been in the fridge a long time. I should see if I can revive it. And my GF starter probably needs a feeding too.

I need to make ciabatta this week. I'm down to two left. Not sure what else I'll make.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I tried making personal pies in muffin tins. It was a first. The pecan pie is supposed to have a blind baked crust and they shrank a lot. My family said there was too little filling to too much crust. I'm a crust guy so I think they're nuts. I'll need to experiment before next Thanksgiving. Maybe I can bake them without blind baking then pull them out of the muffin tin and finish baking with the shells on a sheet pan.

I used up the last of my Nabisco chocolate wafer cookies to make the hazelnut chocolate pie. Not sure what I'll do next. There are other chocolate wafer cookies out there so I may try those. I've tried making my own or using Oreos and neither were approved.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi BA. Not only is Violet still baking but my oldest son is as well. He is working for a place called BagelUp in NYC as a side gig and is making bagels, assisting teaching classes, and helping out. He is having a great time. He starts his first, real job in Feb so I am glad he is having as much fun as he can now.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi. It's been crazy! Hope you all are doing well.

Never had a banh mi with headcheese. I don't think I would have tried it. Headcheese creeps me out.

I've started to tinker with gluten free. I volunteer for a place and all the people who run it are GF and craving sourdough. I've been using KAB GF bread flour. It's several different starches. The exec chef there tried it and said it didn't have the big, airy feel with holes but the crust was great. Some how none of my bread (GF or regular) have those big airy holes. Not sure what I am doing wrong. My ciabatta, for example, has a tighter crumb than typical ciabatta. I might need to let it rise at room temp longer after taking it out of the fridge.

I'm experimenting with hand pies. I have good recipes for dough and for fruit filling. I may use it for Thanksgiving pies. Not sure how to put pumpkin or pecan pie filling into hand pies but maybe I'll put the pie dough in muffin tins and make individual pies. It uses sour cream for the liquid and it's pretty extensible and it has really nice layers.

My challah program has its second client now. It is remarkably hard to give away bread! I have a 20 quart Vevor stand mixer which does a nice job with the dough. I'm up to about 20lbs and not sure how much more I can make. But I get better kneading after 20 minutes in the mixer than 45 minutes by hand. My challah finally has the right texture. I finally used up my SAF red so I'm going to try some sample loaves this week with SAF gold. And Violet - my baby - is helping me as part of her bat mitzvah project. I cannot believe my baby will be bat mitzvah in July. No wonder I am too old to knead 20lbs of dough by hand.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi,

I like them. I try to order a bunch at one time because over a certain amount is free shipping. Also, when I ordered from them more frequently they sent me lots of good coupons.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hold on now BA- you can't find anyone to take some spare chocolate cake off you hands?

[aaronatthedoublef]

My favorite cake comes from Rosie's baking book. It's a sour cream chocolate cake with a chocolate frosting that uses evaporated milk, unsweetened and semi sweet chocolate, and sugar. You melt the chocolate and throw all the ingredients in the blender until mixed. I started add the sugar to the evaporated milk first and heating both then mixing before adding to the melted chocolate. This seemed to fix the grit problem.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA, nice cake. Is it a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting? I have a similar recipe for ganache frosting but it calls for granulated sugar. If you follow the recipe (I stopped) it can be kind of gritty. I bet your powdered sugar would fix that.

I made my first test batch of hand pies. I made a KA recipe with blueberries and a sour cream pie dough. Sour cream is the liquid. I only had six but the recipe said I should have eight. The blueberry filling is nice and basically a quick preserve. I can probably sub in strawberries too. I will also try to figure out how to make some pies like chess pies and pumpkin pies into hand pies. The pies have nice layering. I'll work on the yield. I also need to work on scaling - can I mix pie dough in a stand mixer?

Next are macarons. The brewery wants to use macarons as a GF alternative. But they also want to package three different cookies together. I've checked with some nutritionist friends and we cannot package GF and non-GF together and call it GF.

I'm thinking a chocolate chip cookie, a shortbread cookie, and a chocolate chip cookie to start.

I've started using my couche for my ciabatta. I'm still not getting a high enough rise. I may start doing a stretch and fold to increase integrity a little.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Awesome story! When I moved to CT the first time I live a few miles from the Pepperidge Farms bakery. It smelled great and I could always pick up inexpensive loaves of their bread.

[aaronatthedoublef]

At Costco and WF they are back to pre-surge prices. Last week I bought five dozen large white for $22.59 at Costco. One man was stunned by the price but I pointed out that was under $5/dozen. 18 large white eggs were $7.99. Yesterday WF cage free large brown eggs were $5.95.

Is demand down now? People here are already buying for Easter which puts a premium on white eggs. It's the only time during the year our local WFs sell white eggs.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Nice looking banana bread!

I made challah to give away this week and I just made batches of molasses cookies and chocolate chip cookies. I pitched adding dessert to a local brewery and I have a meeting with their COO this afternoon. I decided to bring some samples.

The challah rose this time. Hooray! As I was making it some caterers came into the kitchen with me. I always make extra so I gave them a couple of rolls (it is mean to bake bread around people and not offer them some!). They asked me if I was available on weekdays and took my contact info. We'll see where it goes.

I bought the St. Germain couche on Amazon. I'm going to use it next time I make ciabatta. It should be this weekend. Henry is home and he eats a lot of bread!

If nothing else, scalding milk will reduce some of the water in milk. This will concentrate other things, like the sugars. I boil my cider for challah. It's pasteurized but boiling makes the flavor stronger.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA. I saw that one and it is the most expensive. It is also linen.

I'll ask what to look for in a couche. I could also always ask on the BBGA.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Len - looks great. And I refer to BBA regularly although I've yet to bake a loaf from it. If you want to make a 4 or 6 strand braid it has great directions, for example. And there are some fun stories in it too.

Mike - thanks for the tips on the baking steel. I just don't want to shell out the money for it right now. I remembered how we made pizza at our college pub and I may try a variation on that. We would stretch the dough then put it in an oiled pan. The pan went in the deck oven. After some amount of time we would take it out of the pan and finish it on the deck.

I must have made hundreds of those pizzas over four years!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Choco, the braid is lovely. I always made calzoni because I was too lazy to make stromboli.

Believe it or not. sometimes you can buy refurbished goods for good prices from Amazon. The least expensive I found there was $70. You might do better. I've had good luck there buying refurbed computers. They are a couple of years behind the latest model but they are perfect for middle school.

BA & Joan, thanks. I always keep my yeast in the freezer and theoretically it should have been good. It was less than a year old.

I haven't proofed my yeast since I switched from active to instant. I also never proofed bread dough at bakeries. I usually mix my liquids at home - apple cider, eggs, oil, and honey. Maybe I'll reserve some cider and proof my yeast next time.

I'm a firm believer that there is no "perfect" pizza, just what you like. I have been on a quest for a long time to make a good, Chicago thin. This is close. Some people told me I need a steel instead of a stone but that is an expensive upgrade!

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